The short story of how we met is, “We had mutual friends who introduced us." The long story of how we met is we were both attending a river float trip celebrating a friend’s birthday. While on said float trip, the group came across a rope swing tied to a tree branch, so naturally we had to all give it a try. A few in the group were first up the tree, and of course Paige insisted she be the first to go off the swing. Patrick stepped aside to let her go and looked on as she stepped off the branch, swung on the rope for a brief period, then her grip slipped as she was only a few feet over the water. She hit the bottom…hard. Paige’s leg was hurting, but her pride wouldn’t let it show. She swam to her friend Amy, who was in medical school at the time, and said, “I think I broke my leg”. Amy gave a very professional (slightly intoxicated) diagnosis of, “You’re probably fine! Walk it off." After seeing this act of toughness, Patrick knew she was the one for him. So much so that they spent that evening at the local watering hole enjoying each other’s company and two stepping while waiting on the pizza order to take back home for the rest of the friend group. Time got away from them because they were having so much fun and they were surprised to see an angry, and hungry, mob of friends walking across the road to see why the pizza was taking so long. The rest is history.

We were on a trip to Scotland and Ireland. We had a layover in Amsterdam and Paige suggested that we leave our carry-ons in a storage locker so we could go walk around Amsterdam. Patrick immediately shut down the idea because he did not want to leave his backpack at the airport. Instead, he would carry his giant backpack all through the city and would ask Paige every time someone would pass us, "Is my backpack still zipped up?" It was Patrick's first time to Europe so Paige just thought he was being overly paranoid about getting something stolen out of his backpack. But, what could be so important that he was this worried? Flash forward to when we get to Scotland, we had a tour scheduled for Inveraray Castle. While walking around, Patrick says he needs to step outside for some fresh air. Paige finishes walking around the castle, taking her sweet time. Patrick finally comes in to get her and finds her in the gift shop (of course). He then suggests that we go walk through the garden because he says he heard it was really pretty. Not long into exploring the garden, Patrick asked a man to take our picture in front of the castle. He was so nervous and I think we both blacked-out, but he managed to ask Paige to marry him! The stranger he asked to take our picture turned out to be the photographer that Patrick had hired to take our pictures! We spent the rest of the afternoon giddy and couldn't wait to tell our families and friends!